] The adventures
of Evil Exidy aka "The Crazy Cracker" and his Apple // computer.

_______________________________________________________

] Introduction:

] Our first
experience with a computer was with an Apple ][ Computer system - as early
as 1979, 1980.

] In 1982 our
father would reserve an one hour slot every friday night at the Boulder library
(in Boulder Colorado) so we could play on their Apple ][ computers, this was
a day both my brother and I would look forward to every week. Aside from playing
games at the Arcade and Pong at home, the Apple ][ opened up a totally different
door for us - we were now able to copy games from friends and other people
in the area using copy programs, one of our favorites was COPY ][ PLUS. Around
this time we relocated to Natchitoches Louisiana.

] Late 1982
our parents decided to purchase an Apple //e for us because he noticed how
excited, dedicated and enthusiatic we were about the computer system. What
he failed to understand was our addiction to the system - we spent all day
and most of the night on the computer- dialing into bbs's, downloading games
and doing other "not so nice" things to others. We had already copied
hundreds of games, hacking (definition: password stealing), phreaking (making
illegal phone calls) and cracking (the breaking of copy protection on retail
software). Back in the early 80's instead of the internet, we had an underground
circle of bulletin boards systems (BBS's) where all the pirates (people who
copy retail software) would trade games and share hacking and phreaking information.
The BBS numbers were very easy to find, because whenever someone would crack
a game they would leave their 'logo' or signature on the game with phone numbers
to their favorite pirate bulletin boards. Some of our favorite bulletin boards
included: The Pirates Cove, South Pole, Miami Vice, The Pirates Den and many
others.. Aside from the cool bulletin boards there were pirate circles and
everyone had an alias, I was known as The Crazy Cracker and my brother was
Dr. Klepto.. Other more well known crackers/pirates were: Two Knives Tan,
The Warezird, Crockett and Tubbs, Hot Rod, The Gonif, Krakowicz NY, Apple
Bandit, The Syndicate, The Disc Jockey, Ali Baba, The Intern, The Sheik, The
Triton, Apple Rebel, The Intern, The Time Lord. These crackers/pirates belonged
to organizations or circles that worked together to crack and distribute games,
some of the orgazinations were: The Midwest Pirates Guild, Coast to Coast,
Black Bag, The Rackateers and many others. This was a huge underground scene,
a scene that basically no one was aware of at the time.

]
My system included:

]
Apple //e computer system + 80 column card.

]
Apple //e dual 5 1/4" disk drives.

]
Star dot matrix printer.

]
Hayes Micromodem 300 bps then later Novation Apple Cat ][ 300/1200

]
Kraft Apple //e joystick.

] Novation Apple Cat // Modem

---(above)--- not actual picture of my
computer.

] Now that
I had my computer system, I was ready for business. We got our own phone line
and started calling bulletin boards like crazy.. Running our phone bill up
to $200 a month with no slowing down... Our phone bills were going up, up
and up... We had to do something about this, so we started experimenting with
calling card companies.. Our local long distance company was called LDS (Long
Distance Service) and we got them good.. I cooincidentally saw a post on a
bulletin board which gave an actually calling card # that worked for the SKYLINE
long distance company. This same number worked on LDS, but what we soon found
out was that LDS had only 1000 calling card numbers issued and they were all
issued between 56xxxx and 57xxxx.. So we ran a hacking program over a 2 day
period and managed to take all their calling cards numbers with one big SWOOOOOP.
Now we were set, we could make all the phone calls - anytime - anywhere in
the world without having to worry about any more phone bills or parents breathing
down our necks for making expensive phone calls. The most exciting thing about
this was that we lived in an area where tracing was impossible, our phone
system was so primitive that even the operator didnt know where I was calling
from! This gave us confidence and allowed us to do what we wanted in relation
to long distance phone calls.

] It didnt
stop here! We talked our parents into buying us a 10 meg external hard drive
(by a company called RANA ELITE). At the time it was the biggest hard drive
made and it cost my parents $1200... Believe me.. We were now considered ELITE!
We also managed to get the hacker's choice modem called the NOVATION APPLE
CAT ][ modem. This modem was able to do 300 bps + 1200 bps in half duplex..
We were also able to clone operator tones and do speed dialing. This cut our
hacking time in half (hahahahaha). We had now had everything we needed for
our own bulletin board system (BBS).

] After thinking
of some cool names we decided to go with (k)uality (k)onnections aka "The
Silent World" BBS - which ran as a BBS, CAT-FUR and AE. At the time (k)
meant COOL or better yet - Kool. So the more K's that were used, the kooler
your bbs. I also joined the pirate group known as COAST TO COAST. So all the
software that was cracked by them had our phone number listed on it. I was
only 12 years old and my brother was 11, but we were doing stuff that most
people couldnt even imagine for its time.

] By this time
we already had thousands of games and access to everything we ever wanted.
We even picked up how to CC (credi card). This is where people jump in dumbsters
and steal the credit card carbon copies and use them to order merchandise
(including computer parts, games, anything!!). You can imagine what happened
here, I just leave it at that :)

] ...This period
of chaos/adventure in my life ended in 1985/1986 when several of my friends
were arrested for phreaking. I was tipped-off almost a month before the FBI
came to my house. The tip was given by a friend of mine (king Lear).. He called
me from a phone booth and explained to what had happened to him and his BBS,
he also stated that FBI was asking questions about us (my brother and I) and
our BBS. Later that week I managed to hide all my hardcore hacking/phreaking
equipment plus all our illegal software. We set up a bare bones 'skeleton
computer' which was taken by the FBI when they came to our house.

] The FBI.
This was a scary time for our parents, but I can honestly say it wasnt for
my brother and I. When the FBI came over and when they introduced themselves
my parents were scared stiff. Both my brother and I were cool and calm, because
we knew they were coming so we had already prepared for it. They asked us
questions, more questions, and even more questions.. They were determined
to break us.. We never did! We denied everything.. They even asked to see
our computer which we were more than happy to show them. They took our computer
away from us which ended our rampage.
In the end we were never defeated but our parents cracked down on us and would
not allow us to dial into any BBS's anymore. Plus by this time we were in
our mid teens and had bigger and better things to do.